Urban Jungle
by Death Can't Stop Dr. Seuss
Summary: Bats may be frightening, but they're not the only silent predators lurking in the night. Penguins may be stylish, but can they hunt like a bird of prey? And snakes may be able to shed their skin, but never their past.
1. Prologue

Jack Houston stepped off the bus, watching the bustling street warily, his gleaming, hungry eyes taking it all in from behind his thick glasses. Ever since the decaying city had been established, come hell or high water, Gotham's roadways had consistently remained crowded. Those who dared not venture into the labyrinth of traffic jams could be found walking down the city sidewalk, alongside hundreds, sometimes thousands of other pedestrians. Countless odors filled the air, a dozen languages could be heard in as many minutes, and every corner had something to offer, whether it was a reggae musician attempting to solicit a few bucks for his talents, or a street walker in a Catwoman costume.

He loved working in places like this. The loud, chaotic flow of people made it very easy to vanish, to slip away without a trace. Not that he needed it to be easy, mind you. He was the best, an unparalleled professional in a field where few lived long enough to reach his skill level. Still, even the most accomplished of experts occasionally sought solace in the bits of good fortune that came their way.

Across the street, a vagrant looked up hopefully, willing the newcomer to walk over and give him some change. Houston ignored him, saving his money for whatever sustenance the nearest fast food joint had to offer. After trying and failing to locate one for twenty minutes, he decided to lower his standards, swallow his pride, and make for the nearest gas station.

The teenage clerk at the counter ignored Houston as he walked into the store, not bothering to look up from his magazine. The selection was terrible, with only a few bags of plain potato chips, the occasional generic candy bar, and only one lonely Coke stranded with a conglomerate of Diet Mountain Dew. A faded sign told him that the nachos were "buy one, get one free". He peered into the uncovered vat of boiling cheese, saw a greasy hair longer than an Alaskan winter, and concluded that the manager didn't want anyone to leave his store alive.

Like many great men, he made his choices based on instinct. His gut told him to avoid the nacho cheese at all costs. It also told him that he was under surveillance, being watched by men who knew who he was and what he did for a living. There was nothing to indicate that this was the case, but he could feel their eyes on him. It was his sixth sense kicking in, the kind that a man only acquires after years of being hunted.

He paid for the Coke and a bag of chips and left the inconvenient convenience store.

In his line of work, the Bible didn't come up often. But there was one specific verse that he kept very close to his heart, a bit of divine wisdom that he had applied to his career more times than he cared to count. For almost two thousand years, Matthew 10:16 had been instructing it's readers to be as cautious as serpents, and as innocent as doves.

Houston was no longer innocent, having been tainted by years of sin. But a more cautious snake had never lived.

After pushing and shoving his way into exceptionally rude throng of passerby, he walked down the street for a few blocks, ducked into a back alley so dismal only Gotham could have spawned it, and doubled back. He slipped into the front lobby of a high end hotel, admiring it's tasteful artwork and expensive lounge furniture before entering the restroom. He locked himself in a stall and began to peel off his face.

Little by little, the pale flesh was shed, revealing a tanned complexion that reflected his numerous trips to the Cayman Islands. He winced as the powerful adhesive refused to relinquish his skin without a fight. Finally, after several minutes, he had completed his transformation.

The mask that he had been sporting since he had arrived in Gotham was made of a very special latex, one that would vanish as easily as he could. He dropped the tattered remains in the toilet, along with his jet black wig. He removed a small capsule from the back pocket of his reversible suit jacket, tossing it in the porcelain bowl along with his old identity. Within seconds the chemical agent in the capsule had completely dissolved the toilet's contents.

After he had turned his suit jacket inside out, changing it from a neon orange suede to a stylish black armani, he tossed his absurdly thick glasses in the trash can. He contemplated fishing the ugly eyewear out of the waste basket and snapping them in half, purely out of spite, finally deciding to let it pass.

He emerged from the lobby having added added twenty years to his face in ten minutes. Without any hesitation, he began walking down the street, taking confident, powerful strides through the urban jungle called Gotham. With conservative clothes, tousled blond hair, and an innate arrogance about him, he could have passed for one of the dozens of stock brokers and bankers heading for their boring white collar jobs. It wasn't his most interesting ruse, but would do for now. With a pompous smirk that fit him as well as his newest personage, he vanished into the crowd.


	2. Chapter 1

The bamboo bō staff hit the leather bag with enough g-force to crack safety glass. After four hours of alleged training that was, in fact, thinly disguised venting, the bag finally gave out. Cassandra Cain decided to do something more productive.

Some people express their distress by screaming, wailing, cursing the heavens and so on. Although she was no longer mute, having navigated the psychological obstacle course that had prevented her from communicating with others, Cassandra was still a bit apprehensive about speaking aloud. She knew the power that words held, with a single sentence having the potential to avert a crisis, spark a revolution, or end a life.

Over the course of her life she had seen many things, secrets that, if revealed, could be more devastating than a nuclear war. If she opened the floodgates, freeing the dark things she had kept caged inside her mind since before she could remember, she would be vulnerable, lacking the leverage needed to survive in a world of killers and thieves. A lack of trust crippled her tongue, and so she remained silent as often as she could.

She walked through the refurnished interior of the clocktower, marveling at the hulking bronze gears. Many of them had stopped working, leaving the ornate time piece outside next to useless. The inside continued to serve a purpose, albeit one that the general public wasn't privy to. For the last five years, it had been occupied by Barbara Gordon, a brilliant computer hacker and information broker who had been left paralyzed from the waist down after a life changing encounter with the Joker. For the last several months Cassandra had been living at the clocktower as well, staying close by her handicapped mentor. Barbara wanted someone to continue where she left off, to succeed her as Batgirl so she could focus on her Oracle persona.

Cassandra knew what it was to be someone's legacy. Her father, an infamous assassin and single parent, had been trying to manipulate her since she was in the womb. She had been raised to be completely dependant on him, doing whatever he asked without a second's hesitation. His attempts to craft her into the perfect murder weapon, an innocent looking little girl with the extensive training required to be a professional killer, had failed in the long run, something that Cassandra was eternally grateful for. She had seen the suffering that men like David Cain caused, and was thankful that she had been given the opportunity to become part of something more.

The architect whose vision had made it possible to marry clocktower with apartment had done a splendid job of making the living quarters comfortable, but it was impossible to completely disguise the building's original intent. Many of the cogs and mechanisms that had, once upon a time, made the mighty structure tick were still visible to the naked eye. Cobwebs hung in the corners like cheap Halloween decorations. She stopped to spy on a wizened old owl, one of the many who nested in the antiquated spire, as it patrolled the shadows for any rodent bold enough to live in it's domain.

Her bird watching was interrupted by her roomate's voice crackling over a speaker system that had been installed there since before Cassandra had become a tenant. She often wondered why Barbara would need it, seeing as how she had been the solitary inhabitant of the clocktower for almost half a decade, excluding the owls.

"Cassie? You there?" A pointless question if ever there was one; the security cameras had arrived the same day as the intercom, and not a day went by where Oracle didn't get use them. "If you're not too busy, I have something you might be interested in." She left it at that, possibly because she thought that Cassandra's curiosity would lure her in, probably because she didn't want to speak about the matter at hand outside of her saferoom. Paranoid didn't even come close to describing Barbara, and "Cassie" knew that she was going to have to make the trip up four flights of decrepit wooden stairs if she wanted to talk to her mentor.

At least whatever assignment Oracle had in store for her might be enough to put her mind at ease. The memories would always be there, but if she could dive into a new challenge, something difficult enough that it would require her undivided attention, than maybe she could forget the details. The spray of hot blood on her face. Tim's look of icy revulsion. Her father's sickening smile of approval.

Recently, she had been forced to kill Nyssa Raatko, the estranged daughter of Ra's al Ghul, to prevent the slaughter of thousands of innocents all over the world. Although the cold dead quality of the woman's eyes was something she would carry for the rest of her life, Cassandra was convinced that she made the right decision, feeling that comitting a homicide, no matter how terrible, was better than allowing genocide. Tim, ever the devoted acolyte of Batman, had seen things quite differently. His moral code had always been black and white, with no extra space for the occasional exception. So when he found out that she had commited this heinous act, he had no choice but to break it off with her.

She wasn't surprised by this development. Their romance had been strained as of late, and she had done little to salvage it. For years she had done her best to isolate herself emotionally, and had seen no reason why she should have to change that. He begged her to confide in him, only to be met by stony silence. Being a good listener only takes you so far in a relationship.

Tim's subsequent rebound fling with Stephanie hadn't been much of a shock either. Even someone who didn't have her expertise in reading human body language could see that they had been attracted to each other from the start. But she had never thought that they dive headfirst into a carnal relationship the second Tim broke his shackles. She wished she could lie to herself and say that it didn't hurt, but was too educated in the ways of pain to ignore the truth.

As she finally reached the top of the ancient staircase, nimbly stepping over a large gap in the landing, she came face to face with the door. It was the first and only thing anyone ever recognized when they ran out of stairs, it's silvery surface and sophisticated electronic security system contrasting greatly with the dim and forgettable surroundings. After a retinal scan, vocal recognition test, finger print analysis, and other unnecessary precautions, the door slid open, a soft green glow from the room beyond instantly lighting up the dark stairwell, casting strange shadows across her sad face. She entered the chamber.

Barbara sat in the center, waiting for her. In a strange way, she reminded Cassandra of the clocktower itself. On the outside, she looked placid, almost old. It wasn't her physical appearance, so much as the way she carried herself. She appeared to be wise beyond her years, the kind of mentor that was content to sit in her wheelchair, sip tea, and offer bits of sage wisdom to her younger friends. Of course, the simile ran deeper than what was on the surface.

Both the clock and the woman who lived in had an extremely complex interior, but only Barbara continued to use hers. Although logic told her otherwise, Cassandra had always envisioned the woman's brain as a mechanical entity, with motors humming, wires sparking, everything operating with liquid cooled efficiency.

She gestured for Cassandra to sit down on a comfortable leather chair, a courtesy that was gladly accepted after a long trip up the stairs. Oracle had good taste when it came to chairs, which may have been some innate sense of style, but was more likely the result of spending every waking moment sitting down.

"Are you up for a bit of intrigue, with a bit of high profile espionage on the side?" Cassandra nodded, thankful for a question that she didn't have to answer verbally. The beginning of the conversation was always the hardest for her; there were, after all, an unlimited number of things to say.

Barbara summoned a three dimensional hologram from one of the countless machines that occupied the grotto, as it was often called. The image was a man, probably in his late thirties, classically good looking. Cassandra memorized his features out of pure reflex.

"His name is Jack Houston," Oracle continued. "He's works for a terrorist group called KOBRA. You heard of it?" Another nod. The extensive training that her father had given her included lessons on some of the more powerful extremist groups during that time. Cassandra hadn't bothered to keep informed about KOBRA, and her education was rapidly receding into the past. How had things changed since her unorthodox schooling all those years ago? Oracle's voice forced her to focus on the conversation at hand, but she still decided to update herself on her current enemy.

"They use him to raise vast sums of cash for their operations, equipment, and so on. He's a master gambler, who knows more cheating techniques than I was aware even existed, and he's beaten the house more than once. Casinos from all over the country have been scandalized, and they've spared no expense hiring the best money can buy to hunt him down. Bounty hunters, private investigators, freelance assassins, all of them have been contracted. But they never find him, because he's never who they think he is.

"As soon as the owners find out that he's scamming them, he completely abandons whatever identity he's using at the time, and manages to create a new one, complete with a different passport, drivers license, even a fresh birth certificate. He alters his appearance, gets a new face, and the casinos never find him. They waste their time and money chasing down a man who never existed in the first place."

After a moment of silence, Cassandra realized that Barbara was expecting her to ask a question. She went with the obvious one. "Why are you telling this?" Oracle's face lit up brighter than the bank of computer screens she stared at around the clock.

"Because he's in Gotham. I've been tracking him around the country, mainly because no one else can. If my information is correct, he should be somewhere in the city limits. I want you to capture him, for two very important reasons. One, he's high ranking enough to have some information that we could use to damage KOBRA. If we interrogate him, and he cooperates, than we might have enough to build a case against the group, maybe even get a few of their members indicted.

"The second reason is a bit more complicated. If any of the people who are trying to capture or kill Houston actually succeed while he's here in Gotham, KOBRA will send their operatives to investigate and, most likely, retaliate. They're extremely vindictive, and they've already experienced a crushing defeat in this city. If one of their best earners dies here, they might decide to establish a foothold here, They may even target it in a terrorist attack."

Cassandra tried her luck with another question. "Where does he keep money?"

"_The_ money. I'm paying your English tutor too much if you can't nail a simple preposition. And he keeps it in offshore banks. Cash smugglers get it out of the country, usually dump it somewhere like Zurich or Grand Cayman. He may do some of it in person, but for the most part it's too risky. Why's it important?"

"Casinos get money, maybe they leave him alone. Can you give it back?"

"If I could track it, that would be an excellent idea. But the money has either been spent already, or it's being stored in numbered bank accounts all over the world. Given enough time, I might be able to do something, but I won't be able to hunt down the money as fast as they can hunt down Houston. Besides, he's screwed these people out of millions of dollars. They're not going to let something like that go."

Cassandra nodded, having run out of questions, and turned to go. She had been given her assignment, and she was eager to get started. The door slid open and she dashed down the crumbling stairs, taking two at a time in her haste. She passed the ancient owl, who was lazily picking at a rather unfortunate rat, and regarded him as a friendly rival. He had succeeded in his hunt, and she would feel somewhat upstaged if she didn't capture her quarry as well.


End file.
